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7 Lady Bosses On Get Real On Making The Right Moves

Anyone that has been in a position that requires managing others or running a business can tell you that if there’s one thing that will never go away, its challenges. They show up when you least expect them bringing uncertainty to your career, testing your abilities (and your patience), but more importantly challenges help you grow.

I personally used these difficult times to reflect and use the obstacle as motivation to accomplish things that seem impossible. That’s just me, though. Today, I’ve highlighted seven incredibly talented ladies that overcame challenges during the early phases of their business. These ladybosses illustrated how hard work, passion, and determination go a long way in making your dreams come true.

So how do they do it? Keep reading as female leaders explain the challenges, and lessons learned along the way.

1. Avoid isolating yourself from others.

“Throughout my career, my biggest challenge has been learning to deal with criticism–especially negative Yelp and Amazon reviews. When someone posts a 1-star review about the restaurant (or one of my books)…. ouch. Even if it doesn’t happen very often, it still hurts!” —Alexandra Franzen, Author, Copywriter, Writing Coach/Consultant, and Co-owner of pop-up brunch restaurant HunnyMilk.

Alexandra overcame this challenge by avoiding isolating herself. “Sitting alone in my bedroom, sobbing into my laptop, obsessing over the words that someone has posted online… nope. That doesn’t help. I need to reach out to my community–friends, clients, colleagues–for encouragement, humor, and a healthy sense of perspective,” Alexandra shares.

Reaching out–not drawing inward–is what helps Alexandra to move forward. She discusses this a great deal in her new book, You’re Going to Survive, which is about how to deal with stressful, discouraging experiences at work.

2. Set specific office hours

Even though you run a business to have a flexible schedule, and to have the freedom that an office job can’t provide, that doesn’t mean that setting office hours won’t work for you.

Especially if you have other obligations, for example, if you are a caretaker, you have small children, or your business is a side hustle. Any of these are going to require just as most time and attention as your business does. You’ll have to master time management to make it work.

A gal that knows about this is Ashley Mason, owner of Dash of Social a social media consultancy for ladypreneurs, since a few months before launching her business, Ashley’s mom was diagnosed with glioblastoma, grade IV brain cancer.

“These past 20 months have been a rollercoaster, and her doctors did tell us in April that she has less than a year left to live. I’m her caretaker three days per week, which is difficult to juggle with client calls and client work,” said Ashley.

Ashley overcame this challenge in her business by having custom office hours to accommodate both her mom’s schedule and her clients. Also, Ashley’s clients are aware of her situation and support her 100 percent.

3. Trust yourself and your instincts

“One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is to stop second guessing myself. My co-founder Christine and I never encountered any sexism while growing our business, and anytime us being women comes up it is always between us personally.” —Helen Lee, Co-founder & COO, JOANY

Helen points out that sometimes we second guess ourselves and then look at our male counterparts who just say “yeah, let’s do it” and they don’t have that tendency to second guess. “In that way, it almost feels like sometimes we put the females stigma on ourselves. When that happens, we just need to look at each other and say “we’ve got this, we did our homework, and we know what we’re doing.”

“It’s all about getting out of our own heads and trusting our instincts,” Helen suggests.